Blog Archives

Have you ever wondered what pollinator-supporting plants you can add to your property ?

Here’s an excellent and enjoyable way to find out. Funded by one of our Community IPM Grants, Cooperative Extension of Putnam County created the perfect example. While you can certainly stop in to visit, (Cornell Cooperative Extension of Putnam County, 1 Geneva Road, Brewster NY.), here’s the next best thing. Or maybe it’s better because you can visit any time regardless of weather and distance!

Visit a real pollinator gardenwith this virtual 360 degree tour. In this curated experience, suitable for youth and adults, go on a pollinator insect hunt, or learn about the threats to native and non-native pollinators. Master Gardener Volunteers will help you make decisions about plant and landscape choices that support pollinator abundance and diversity.

This is just one of the resources we are pleased to provide to help you help pollinators.

The THINK IPM Blog tries to cover the breadth of our program but if you know anything about us, it’s that pest management covers much more than cockroaches and dandelions. Here’s the rest of our blogs:

The goal of this blog is to inform New Yorkers who are trying to control pests – on farms, in backyards, in businesses, or in homes – about the role that biological control plays (or could play) in successful integrated pest management. Additional information and resources can be found here.

The information is posted by Amara Dunn, Biocontrol Specialist with the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program. New content will be posted approximately once a month. Click the “Subscribe” button on the right to make sure you don’t miss anything! Content may include information on the effective use of biocontrol, responses to questions from stakeholders, and updates on new or ongoing biocontrol projects of interest to New Yorkers.

If you have questions about biocontrol, you can contact Amara by email (arc55@cornell.edu), or you can call her office (315-787-2206).

This is a seasonal scouting report providing information on presence, identification, and management guidelines for significant field crop pests in New York. This report provides timely information to help users learn about, and better anticipate, current and emerging problems and improve their integrated pest management efforts.

The IPM Ornamentals program works with university researchers, extension educators, crop consultants and growers to identify pest management issues and find answers. We deliver the IPM solutions to growers through hands-on workshops, demonstrations, and publications.

The purpose of this site is to provide weekly reports from the NY sweet corn pheromone trap network. The trap network is a collaboration between the NYS IPM Program, local Cornell Cooperative Extension programs, farmers, and crop consultants. We also provide scouting and threshold information for fresh market sweet corn and links to resources on the major sweet corn insect and disease pests. The information on these pages is maintained by Marion Zuefle, Vegetable IPM Extension Area Educator with the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program, with help from Craig Cramer, Communications Specialist with the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University.
To contact Marion: mez4@cornell.edu

Winter weather doesn’t mean time to stop thinking about ticks. Certainly not for the Don’t Get Ticked New York team here at the NYSIPM program. Tick are active year round, and are out looking for hosts We’ve continued to provide resources and give talks around the state, and update our own resources. Visit the Don’t Get Ticked New York page.

Ticks and tick-borne diseases have become a significant public health issue in New York, with different tick species and diseases currently present and spreading within the state and region.Visit the Don’t Get Ticked New York page.

While visiting our blog, you have also been checking out older posts. Our second most popular post viewed in 2018 was a 2014 post, Identifying Your Pest – with Poop?. There are a lot of budding scatologists out there.

Other IPM Blogs – Besides ThinkIPM, we have more dedicated blogs, and you don’t need to be a specialist to subscribe to them. Here are some of the more popular posts:

Our new Spotted Lanternfly video, Have YOU Spotted Lanternfly Egg Masses was just posted, but it has already reached the number two spot. This invasive insect is getting a lot of attention and we need your help to keep track of it in New York.

Winter had an early showing in New York this year. So when the temperature hit 50oF yesterday, I took the opportunity to spend some time outside. And, as I had warned people that follow me and NYS IPM on social media with this great graphic by Matt Frye earlier today, the ticks were out and about. (Side note: follow us at www.facebook.com/NYSIPM and twitter.com/NYSIPM for up-to-date information you can use.)

Now, the ticks weren’t as active as the 70 oF day last February. I had to put in a little more effort to find them. But while tick dragging, I noticed where others regularly go off the beaten track (or, rather, create their own beaten track). We’re going to call this The Dog Zone.

There’s a perfectly good paved path, but the dog print laden path is inches from the woodline.

Let’s face it. Dogs want to stick their noses into interesting places, and there just aren’t that many interesting places on the pavement. So they will take advantage of the length of the leash to get off the pavement and follow the scent trails. And the smells of mice, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, deer, rabbits (you get the idea), are more likely to be wafting at the edge of the woods than in the short grass. I watched dog walkers leave the pavement themselves to indulge their furry friends. Unfortunately, ticks are more likely to be in those areas.

Talk to your vet about options to protect your pets from ticks and tick-borne diseases.

But the really important message here is that ticks are active during the winter. And even if the air temperature is less than 37oF, a protected, sun-exposed area next to a woodline can be significantly warmer. Last week a site we were monitoring had an air temperature of 40oF, but the ground temperature was 50.6oF. So I will end by emphasizing the need to protect yourself from ticks year-round and conduct a tick check EVERY DAY.

Many of us have snow or slush on the ground. While this changes tick activity, it doesn’t mean tick and tick-borne disease risk is over. We’re pleased to provide our newest Tick infographic posters for Farmers, Hunters and Children. Members of the community IPM team continue to gather all the latest information on tick activity and tick-borne diseases regardless of the season. All thirteen posters are listed below, with direct links to printable PDFs.

Today, we’ll highlight our recommendations for HUNTERS!

This poster, featuring a hunter, shows how to check yourself for ticks, and safely remove a tick.

Part of that effort involves creating resources to help educate New Yorkers, as well as giving talks around the state and taking part in online webinars.

Don’t Get Ticked New York offers thirteen infographic posters. Along the right side of our webpage https://nysipm.cornell.edu/whats-bugging-you/ticks/, look for TICK INFOGRAPHIC POSTERS which will link you to ECommons and the pdfs for all of our posters. Where? See below!

Here’s the full list as of November 2018, with direct links to the pdfs.

Recently members of the NYS IPM Program met in Albany as part of a joint meeting of the Clean, Green, and Healthy Schools Steering Committee and the Statewide School IPM Committee.

NYS IPM Educator Joellen Lampman demonstrates ‘dragging for ticks’ as a method to determine tick presence on school grounds.

Clean, Green, and Health Schools is coordinated by the NYS Department of Health and helmed by Dr. Michele Herdt. Their purpose is to promote a healthy learning and working environment in our state’s schools, both public and private.

School environmental health is the way the physical environment of school buildings and school grounds influence the overall health and safety of occupants. School environments can impact occupant health, absenteeism, employee/student retention and satisfaction, academic performance, and operation costs for the school. Children are more vulnerable to environmental exposures because they eat and drink more, relative to their body weight, than adults, their body systems are still developing, and their behaviors put them at greater risk, such as hand-to-mouth action and playing on the ground.

Unfortunately, gaps in outside doors are a common problem in public buildings and offers easy access to rodents.

The New York State Clean, Green, and Healthy Schools Program is designed to help all school employees, volunteers, students, parents, and guardians contribute to improving their school’s environmental health. The program has been developed by a multi-disciplinary Steering Committee to help schools improve their environmental health through voluntary guidelines. Schools that participate in this program gain the opportunity and knowledge to create schools with better environmental health. The program provides information for all school occupants on policies, best practices, tools, knowledge, and resources in nine main areas:

Indoor Air Quality;

Energy and Resource Conservation;

Integrated Pest Management;

Mold and Moisture;

Chemical and Environmental Hazards;

Cleaning and Maintenance;

Transportation;

Construction/Renovation;

Water Quality.

Last year, they began a free pilot program to create safer and healthier learning and working environments for all students and staff across New York State. We are looking for schools that would like to be a part of this pilot program and improve the environmental health of their school through low or no cost actions.

As of October, 2018 they have ten school buildings involved, and hope to have at least 10% of NY schools enrolled in the program by 2024.

The NYS IPM Program is glad to be part of the efforts.

Later in the morning Vickie A. Smith and David Frank from the NYS Dept. Of Education shared their work with charter schools, engaging the participants in the joint meeting with ideas on how to better reach this growing segment of education in NYS.

While we have sought to find a way to work with non-public schools in NY, charter schools are also another subset with their own particular concerns. Like many non-publics, some charter schools operate in rented buildings (some are indeed buildings owned by a public school), and therefore it is not always clear who is responsible for environmental issues school staff face. Charter schools have multiple authorities to report to depending on their location: The NYS Board of Regents, SUNY trustees, NY City Department of Education and the Buffalo City School District. Many students in charter schools are ‘at-risk’. 80% are considered economically challenged, or have disabilities or language barriers.

Charter schools are considered public schools and must comply with many of the same rules. Our day of discussion proved there are plenty of opportunities to increase the use of IPM in all schools in NY State.

Today’s post is from Matt Frye. FYI: (He didn’t just show up on our door talking ticks or rats! And we’re glad he escaped the vines to join our program.)

Kudzu is an invasive vine that was introduced from Japan to the United States in 1876. In its heyday, kudzu was planted extensively throughout the southeastern US, where it was touted for its ability to prevent soil erosion on embankments, restore soil nitrogen (it’s a legume), and provide high quality forage for livestock. Unfortunately, like many invasive organisms introduced outside of their native range, kudzu became a pest species due to its rapid growth rate and the ability to shade out existing vegetation.

Kudzu was planted extensively on slopes for erosion control.

Based on the detrimental effects of this plant and the cost of management, kudzu is listed as a noxious weed in several states. It has also been the subject of extensive research by the US Forest Service, including my graduate research at the University of Delaware, which examined the potential for biological control of kudzu using insect natural enemies.

Kudzu vines grow up trees, over bushes, and create a dense cover of foliage that kills other plants.

In 2014 I published a slide set describing my work and experience with kudzu: why it’s a pest, some of its ecological impacts, common misconceptions, how it was grown, and how it can be killed. Since publishing this document, I have received dozens of requests for more information about the plant. What do most people want to know? How to grow it! This has been for art installations, research on allelopathy, a test to determine if kudzu can grow in zero gravity (yes, kudzu literally will be sent to space), genetic studies and for use as wildlife forage.

The last request for information to grow kudzu in New York was most alarming, and led to communication with colleagues at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. As it turns out – there is a regulation (6 NYCRR Part 575) that prohibits the possession, transport, importation, sale, purchase, and introduction of kudzu and other prohibited and regulated invasive species in New York (thank goodness!). And while there is a loophole for permits to be issued, these are strictly for “research, education or other approved activities.”

Can I help you to manage the plant, and offer suggestions for what to do in spaces where kudzu has been cleared? You bet! Can I help you to grow the plant for research purposes? Sure. But if your interest in growing kudzu is for non-academic purposes –I can’t help you. Sorry (not sorry).

Matt Frye is our Community IPM Extension Area Educator, housed at 3 West Main Street, Suite 112, Elmsford, NY 10523

Matt provides education and conducts research on pests that occur in and around buildings where people live, work, learn and play. The focus of Matt’s program is to help people prevent issues with pests such as rodents, bed bugs, ticks, cockroaches, and indoor flies; or to provide management recommendations for existing problems.

Today, Biocontrol Specialist Amara Dunn addresses a common question.

The short answer is that there probably isn’t a single best method. But there may be a best method for you. I know it’s not a very satisfying answer, but let me explain.

Remember that an area that provides food and shelter for pollinators (and, incidentally, natural enemies of pests, too!) contains a mix of plant species that bloom throughout the growing season and variation in plant shapes, sizes, and types. Leaving debris from last year’s growth is also helpful. While there are many good reasons to use native plants, non-native plants are ok too, as long as they aren’t invasive. There are plenty of resources out there for choosing plant species for pollinators, like this list of regionally-appropriate plants, and this database that is searchable by zip code. Other databases are searchable by specific plant characteristics.

Once you’ve selected the species you want to use in your pollinator habitat area, you have two main tasks: managing weeds, and establishing the plants. And here’s where the options can start to feel daunting. How will you manage weeds – hand pulling, herbicides, tillage, a cover crop, mulch? This is a critical step in creating habitat for pollinators, and one that is too-often overlooked. Experts recommend that you plan to spend at least one full growing season focused only on this task.

The weed management strategy you choose may also depend on how you would like to establish the plants you have chosen. The two main options are planting seeds directly into the ground, or transplanting small seedlings (or “plugs”). But should you do this in the spring or the fall? In the Northeast United States, experts recommend sowing seeds in the fall. Fall is also a good time to transplant perennials. And it has the advantage of allowing you to spend the entire growing season controlling weeds. But depending on your project timeline, it may not feel like the best option for you.

To help you make informed decisions about the best way to establish habitat for pollinators, I am working with Dr. Betsy Lamb and Brian Eshenaur to measure the costs, labor, and effectiveness of different methods for establishing pollinator habitat. The work is being done in demonstration plots located at Cornell AgriTech at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY. We are comparing six different methods, summarized below.

As you can see, we’ve included a mixture of weed management techniques (cover crop, mulch, mowing, herbicide and tillage, soil solarization) and different plant establishment techniques (seeds vs. plants, spring vs. fall timing). And we’re keeping track of the time and money spent on each method.

You can read more about the details of the methods we’re using and see pictures of our spring planting and seeding on my blog, Biocontrol Bytes. Over the next month or so, we will do our fall seeding. Stay tuned as we finish up the season and calculate inputs of time and money and analyze data collected by NYS IPM’s Bryan Brown on weed management success.

Amara Dunn is the Biocontrol Specialist for the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program, Cornell University, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, 630 W. North Street, Geneva, NY 14456. Follow her blog, BIOCONTROL BYTE

Bed bugs are a longtime pest all over the world. Lord knows we here in the states have labored under their curse for upward of four centuries now. The respite we got from DDT was short-lived in evolutionary time, since it takes little for a pest of any sort to become resistant to whatever pesticide we throw against it.

It’s 1939. Most of us haven’t been born yet. But bed bugs are here. How they got around? This cartoon tells all.

Hard to see, difficult to deal with, bed bugs are well-nigh impossible to live with. These hitchhikers have one seeming aim—to take a trip from one place to the next without you noticing a thing. And by the time you do, it’s too late to wave good-bye. The only thing bed bugs have going for them? They don’t carry disease—a consolation, yes, though a small one when you’re in the thick of it all.

To help, we offer the ultimate in how-to guides: How to Get Bed Bugs Out of Your Belongings. Here you’ll find the pesticide-free solutions you need for household items—items too easily overlooked by the professionals. And the money to replace your stuff? Our guide saves the day.

Consider the humble hair dryer. Our electronics—TV remote, cell phone, lamps and laptops—the list goes on. And you can bet your bottom dollar: bed bugs can find hidey holes within them all. But just try tossing them in a hot dryer (the solution for many a personal or household item). Here’s a place where the hair dryer, helped by its friend the vacuum cleaner, could save the day.

From our guide: Bed bugs are drawn to heat … Warm electronics, especially, should be inspected. Use the hair dryer to blow hot air into cracks and crevices to flush bed bugs, and use the vacuum cleaner to suck them up. Many electronic devices can withstand heat of up to 160°F. Check the owner’s manual or call the manufacturer to confirm that the unit can withstand heat.

You get the idea. Now get the guide. And while you’re at it—check out a whole slew of other IPM resources for bed bugs, cataloged here.